I can't even imagine being at this show. I knew what was coming, because the video title says "fireworks," but if I didn't expect it, and I saw it in person, it may have changed my life.
It maybe actually did anyways.
Monday, July 26, 2010
Friday, July 23, 2010
Greater Things, Still to be Done in This Citayyyyyayy
For those who don't know, I work in downtown Calgary. Today, I went for a walk. At first, it was just to find an Arby's. Eventually it turned into exploring. I walked through Eaton Center (a mall downtown which, yes, had an Arby's), some sketchy back alleys, Chinatown, and got lost in the basement mechanical room of some run down parkade.
The point is, I actually started to like this city again. Not that I had begun to dislike Calgary, but after months and months of just living in the suburbs, it starts to really feel exactly the same as most other places i've lived in my life. Just white or beige 2 storey houses with nice Nissan Maxima's parked in the driveway, and nice people mowing their lawns and commenting on how nice the weather's been.
So there's a difference when you venture downtown. Yes, I'm there every weekday, but I seem to have tunnel vision just walking from the train to my office and then back at the end of the day. When I start to actually look around and take in all that's happening, is when things start to seem different. And not always perfect. But there's things you miss about a city when you keep in a rhythm of the same thing every day. The city's so huge that it's easy to miss things. That's why even taking an hour today to explore part of downtown was so eye opening. Maybe i'm missing a lot of things in my life by just sticking to what i did yesterday and the day before. Figuratively and literally.
Go. Explore.
Just don't get lost in the basement of a sketchy downtown parkade.
Thursday, July 15, 2010
The Deal
So here's the deal.
I haven't done much here. for a long, long time. But that's going to change.
I'm going to start getting my act together. Blog posts, Videos, and yes, albums. I have a couple ideas that are just moving past the planning stages, so that means i'll be recording soon. And i'll be posting stuff as soon as i can. I feel like after this long of not recording, i actually have so many ideas bottled up and most of it is going to be unleashed to you very soon. Look for an EP later this year. and free this time. because iTunes won't let me charge less than 9.99 for an EP. and that's only a few songs, so it's quite a ripoff. From now on all EP's will be free. Bam.
Hope that was enough of a public service announcement for you. And now, you may go back to your other activites on the Internets.
Thank you.
Eric Braun
I haven't done much here. for a long, long time. But that's going to change.
I'm going to start getting my act together. Blog posts, Videos, and yes, albums. I have a couple ideas that are just moving past the planning stages, so that means i'll be recording soon. And i'll be posting stuff as soon as i can. I feel like after this long of not recording, i actually have so many ideas bottled up and most of it is going to be unleashed to you very soon. Look for an EP later this year. and free this time. because iTunes won't let me charge less than 9.99 for an EP. and that's only a few songs, so it's quite a ripoff. From now on all EP's will be free. Bam.
Hope that was enough of a public service announcement for you. And now, you may go back to your other activites on the Internets.
Thank you.
Eric Braun
Thursday, July 1, 2010
What You Mean To Me
**EDIT**
It seems I had written this post long enough ago that I actually purchased a new guitar in the time after I saved it and then posted it. So, here is the edit, including the newest.***
Surprisingly, this post is not about a person.
I thought i'd take this time, and this opportunity to update my weakly updated blog, and write about my guitars. Notice I said weakly, and not weekly.
This will go in chronological order. Starting with number one:
1) Yamaha Pacifica
This is first on the list, and it was basically inherited by me when my brother moved away. It originally had some electrical issues, and was given to many different people when they asked to borrow a guitar to learn with. It has a good clean sound, and a terrible neck and tuners that can't hold pitch for much more than a few minutes of playing. But it looks nice.
2) Martin DCX-1kE
I got this guitar at Picker's Alley in Sarnia, Ontario. I saw it there, played it a few times, and traded in my Taylor 110e for it. The main difference between this guitar and the Taylor, was that this one felt solid. It was built well. And it sounded a whole lot better. Although laminate, the Hawaiian Koa on the back and sides simply blew me away. Plus the Fishman pickup was exponentially better than the pre-expression system pickup in the Taylor. Right now I have this guitar tuned down half a step as my backup guitar. (no, not to play Green Day covers)
3) Peavey JF-1
Yes, it's a Peavey. I understand that. But, it's also an electric guitar, so I had my mind made up that looks won over the name. And this guitar was very, very, pretty. And, when you plug it in, it sounds....like an electric guitar. I got it at a weird music store in Edmonton, hidden away off the main roads, and made up of just a big carpeted warehouse. Pretty strange, but they had decent prices and this guitar caught my eye from across the....warehouse. I traded in my Takamine jumbo acoustic for this guitar, which was a hard thing to do, but sometimes you just have to move on.
4) The Lyon
Guaranteed a laugh will exit your mouth when I tell you where i got this: XS Cargo. I saw it in the flyer for the crazy boxing day sales, and I ended up getting one. For $40. And the best part is, it sounds pretty good. For 40 bucks, to get a solid-top acoustic guitar with a pickup, and a case and a guitar stand, was actually pretty amazing. Right now i'm using it with the high octaves of a 12 string set, to give it almost a mandolin sound. It's basically the experiment guitar, and so far it's turning out to be the best 40 bucks i've spent in a long time.
5) Martin 000C-16RGTE
My favorite of the bunch. I saw this at a music store in Calgary, and immediately I was blown away by how good it sounded and how well it played. I had been planning on spending around $1400 on a Larrivee L-body, but that was before i saw this. It had the same body shape, what I consider a much better sound than a lot of the Larrivee's I had been trying, and it had a price tag of almost half of what I wanted to spend on a Larrivee. And the rosewood on the back and sides can't be beat.
6) Epiphone SST Studio
This is the latest guitar to be added to the collection. I have wanted one of these for a very long time, and finally Epiphone started bringing them back into production. This is the guitar (well, the Gibson version at least) that Dave Matthews used for the beginning of the band's career, up until he made the switch to playing Taylor acoustics live. It is amazing because it has the feel of an electric guitar, yet the sound is of a really expensive acoustic guitar. There is no sound hole, instead there are computer designed chambers inside the body that create a sound that really closely represents an acoustic guitar when it is plugged in. I played a few Taylor T5's in the last couple of years, and I always found I had to play around with the tone knobs for a long time until I found a sound that was somewhat decent and not completely hi-mid driven. With this SST, It sounds great with everything right in the middle, and even with no EQ on a P.A. or acoustic amp. The best part about all of this, is that it is the least amount of money i've spent on a guitar. (Well, not less than the LYON, but that doesn't really count.)
Hope that wasn't too boring for some of you. But sometimes I can't think of what to write about, and this is, at least, something.
Eric
It seems I had written this post long enough ago that I actually purchased a new guitar in the time after I saved it and then posted it. So, here is the edit, including the newest.***
Surprisingly, this post is not about a person.
I thought i'd take this time, and this opportunity to update my weakly updated blog, and write about my guitars. Notice I said weakly, and not weekly.
This will go in chronological order. Starting with number one:
1) Yamaha Pacifica
This is first on the list, and it was basically inherited by me when my brother moved away. It originally had some electrical issues, and was given to many different people when they asked to borrow a guitar to learn with. It has a good clean sound, and a terrible neck and tuners that can't hold pitch for much more than a few minutes of playing. But it looks nice.
2) Martin DCX-1kE
I got this guitar at Picker's Alley in Sarnia, Ontario. I saw it there, played it a few times, and traded in my Taylor 110e for it. The main difference between this guitar and the Taylor, was that this one felt solid. It was built well. And it sounded a whole lot better. Although laminate, the Hawaiian Koa on the back and sides simply blew me away. Plus the Fishman pickup was exponentially better than the pre-expression system pickup in the Taylor. Right now I have this guitar tuned down half a step as my backup guitar. (no, not to play Green Day covers)3) Peavey JF-1
Yes, it's a Peavey. I understand that. But, it's also an electric guitar, so I had my mind made up that looks won over the name. And this guitar was very, very, pretty. And, when you plug it in, it sounds....like an electric guitar. I got it at a weird music store in Edmonton, hidden away off the main roads, and made up of just a big carpeted warehouse. Pretty strange, but they had decent prices and this guitar caught my eye from across the....warehouse. I traded in my Takamine jumbo acoustic for this guitar, which was a hard thing to do, but sometimes you just have to move on.
4) The Lyon
Guaranteed a laugh will exit your mouth when I tell you where i got this: XS Cargo. I saw it in the flyer for the crazy boxing day sales, and I ended up getting one. For $40. And the best part is, it sounds pretty good. For 40 bucks, to get a solid-top acoustic guitar with a pickup, and a case and a guitar stand, was actually pretty amazing. Right now i'm using it with the high octaves of a 12 string set, to give it almost a mandolin sound. It's basically the experiment guitar, and so far it's turning out to be the best 40 bucks i've spent in a long time.5) Martin 000C-16RGTE
My favorite of the bunch. I saw this at a music store in Calgary, and immediately I was blown away by how good it sounded and how well it played. I had been planning on spending around $1400 on a Larrivee L-body, but that was before i saw this. It had the same body shape, what I consider a much better sound than a lot of the Larrivee's I had been trying, and it had a price tag of almost half of what I wanted to spend on a Larrivee. And the rosewood on the back and sides can't be beat.6) Epiphone SST Studio
This is the latest guitar to be added to the collection. I have wanted one of these for a very long time, and finally Epiphone started bringing them back into production. This is the guitar (well, the Gibson version at least) that Dave Matthews used for the beginning of the band's career, up until he made the switch to playing Taylor acoustics live. It is amazing because it has the feel of an electric guitar, yet the sound is of a really expensive acoustic guitar. There is no sound hole, instead there are computer designed chambers inside the body that create a sound that really closely represents an acoustic guitar when it is plugged in. I played a few Taylor T5's in the last couple of years, and I always found I had to play around with the tone knobs for a long time until I found a sound that was somewhat decent and not completely hi-mid driven. With this SST, It sounds great with everything right in the middle, and even with no EQ on a P.A. or acoustic amp. The best part about all of this, is that it is the least amount of money i've spent on a guitar. (Well, not less than the LYON, but that doesn't really count.)
Hope that wasn't too boring for some of you. But sometimes I can't think of what to write about, and this is, at least, something.
Eric
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